Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we've been negotiating with Ottawa for years on the resource revenue sharing agreement and were willing to share; they're not. So my questions today are for Premier Handley. I'd like to ask the Premier if there's any other avenue we have besides trying to negotiate with Ottawa, because this has been carrying on too long and I'm afraid that it's just going to carry on a lot longer until a lot of our resources are taken out of the territory and we have nothing left. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Premier, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; we have been negotiating devolution and resource revenue sharing for at least 20 years, and every government has been frustrated with a lack of progress in this area. It has become increasingly important because of the wealth we're getting from Norman Wells oil and also from the diamond mines, and hopefully from the natural gas in the Territories.

Mr. Speaker, we don't permit or issue certification or licences and so on; that's all federal and that's frustrating to us, too. But we don't get to decide whether a project goes ahead or doesn't go ahead. The federal government controls that. They control the environmental assessment process. They take the wealth out of it. It's Crown land, federal Crown land, not our land. So we all end up losing and we're sitting here watching what's going on. We don't have a direct way or direct alternative to negotiations. In fact, it isn't even a fair negotiating session because we don't have much to negotiate with other than our persuasion and our pleading with them and with the Canadian public. We've gotten the Premiers across the country onside and the Finance Ministers across the country onside with us. We've made a lot of progress here, but still they hold the cards.

Mr. Speaker, the only other alternative for us would be for us to try and have our own tax system or something that would be loaded on top of what the federal government has, and that is not a good signal to set out to industry so we don't want to go there. So, Mr. Speaker, I am counting on this federal government to take steps that no other government has done and do what nobody else has done for the last 20 years. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Premier for his answer. He's right; it is frustrating because Ottawa does hold all the cards, and he made an interesting comment talking about our land. I mean we always believed this was our land and then we find out today that it's not. It's not a very good signal that Ottawa is sending to us. I'd like to ask the Premier, would we have the power to introduce legislation that states whatever resources, revenues, are generated in the NWT, stay in the NWT? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, our advice is no, we don't, that federal legislation would always be paramount to whatever we would try to put in place. In fact, the Minister of DIAND, through the NWT Act, would be able to veto if we tried to do something like that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Time for question period has expired; however, I'll allow the Member supplementary questions. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of DIAND seems to hold all the power in the Northwest Territories and that's not fair because he wasn't elected by the people of the Northwest Territories; we were. So I think it's time we take a strong stand. Not just us in this Assembly, but all the leadership in the NWT. It's time we take a strong stand, tell Ottawa this is our land, and if they don't want to negotiate right away, then I think and would the Premier be willing to declare our independence?

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member again is correct. The Minister of DIAND is in effect the Minister responsible for the Territories, all three territories in fact. We are a government. We have limited authority, because we don't have authority over land and water and resources. That's what devolution is all about, is trying to change that so we have the same authority, same responsibility, same rights as do citizens living anywhere else in the provinces. We have a right to that as Canadians. Mr. Speaker, we need to unite, we need to get together, we need to understand that and not keep frustrating the process by our own little competition back and forth about who's going to control what pieces before we have anything to control. Unfortunately, when it comes to resource revenue sharing and devolution, we get too caught up too often in fighting with ourselves rather than working together. Our latest effort with the aboriginal leaders is to get over that. Let's agree on principle. Let's get the resources to the North. Let's

agree on getting that authority in the North and then we can figure out how to divide it up after that. That's what self-government is all about. So, Mr. Speaker, that is the way.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think it's time yet to declare ourselves a separate republic, but I'll take that under advisement. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Final supplementary, Mr. McLeod. Thank you. Time for question period has expired. Written questions. The Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

1. What was the total population of the Bluenose, Bathurst, Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou herds in 1980?
2. Of the seven identifiable herds -- Cape Bathurst, Bluenose West, Bluenose East, Bathurst, Ahiak, Beverly, Qamanirjuaq -- what is the total population of these animals in 2006?
3. How did the department arrive at the number of 1.534 million caribou that was supplied to the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre in 2005?

Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Written questions. Returns to written questions. Replies to opening address. Replies to the budget address. Member for Thebacha, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to take this opportunity today to talk about the budget, about the economy, and where do we go from here.

The Minister, yesterday in his statement, referenced the challenges going forward. Those focussed almost exclusively on resource development and there was limited reference to the issues related to the environment as it pertains to resource development, and there was very limited reference to one of the great big economic stressors that we have and those are the expenditure issues.

Mr. Speaker, as we go forward, we're looking to build a sustainable society and a strong economy. There are two fundamental building blocks to do that. One of them is a healthy environment and then you get healthy people.

Mr. Speaker, there are two components to the budget. There's the revenue side and there's the expenditure side. As we look at all the issues of resource development, we have to do a better job factoring in the effects of the environment. We know from the Caribou Summit that there are things happening to the animals, to the land. We know there are things happening to the water.

The Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change that released their report demonstrated very clearly that in the North we are going to be paying a big price. So as we look to the future, as northerners we have to gather and ask some very basic questions. How fast do we want to develop? What pace can we sustain? What is in the best interest of northerners as we do this? How many diamond mines do we need at any one time? How much oil and gas exploration can the land sustain? We can't just focus on what's happening in the Northwest Territories; we have to look around us at jurisdictions that impact on us. Specifically the one I want to talk about is Alberta.

We know that they are engaged in a very aggressive resource development agenda, that there are severe and significant concerns of what impact that's going to have on the Northwest Territories with the water, with the land, with the animals, with the air with the long-range pollutants. When we talk about caribou, we're not just talking about barren-land caribou here, we're talking about the woodland caribou. There is major habitat disruption and destruction going on. If you overlay in Alberta the agriculture, the forestry, the mining, the oil and gas, the irrigation, there is blessed little left in Alberta that's not going to be developed, and we have to take a page and recognize what can we learn from that. Is that the type of agenda we want in the Northwest Territories? I would submit to you that it's not. I would submit to you that it's unsustainable. Neither the federal government nor the Alberta government, working together for seven years, have been able to come up with the cumulative impact of the massive development that's going on in Alberta.

We in the Northwest Territories are no better off. We cannot tell people or demonstrate what is the cumulative impact of what has happened and is going to happen around us. When you look at even the recent past, Giant Mine, Pine Point, the proposed pipeline, four diamond mines, the fact that there's leases across the North through all the wintering grounds of the caribou, through the calving grounds of the caribou as well. So we have some very serious questions to ask in debate as territory as we go forward. We cannot look project by project anymore.

The challenge then, Mr. Speaker, is for us to look at those questions, to identify those questions and to come up with ways to answer them. Our life depends on this; our land depends on this; the future of our children depend on this. What is in the best interest of northerners? That is the challenge on the revenue side. We can generate the wealth that people are lined up, businesses are lined up, to come to the Northwest Territories to extract the resources and make the maximum benefit of what is there. The Mackenzie gas pipeline is a case in point. Our job, as legislators, as residents of this land, is to make sure that we take the broad view that allows us, for the sake of our children and our grandchildren and those far into the future, that we have made the right choices. There is no need, in my mind, to rush to develop every resource we have in this land as fast as we can as soon as we can. If we do not benefit, then we should not proceed. If we do not get a devolution agreement and a resource revenue sharing agreement, should we continue at any kind of breakneck pace to extract the resources and have all those royalties, as my colleague from Inuvik said, go south? It is poor business. It is poor

stewardship. It's something I don't think we should be doing.

If we do get a devolution agreement, then we can better control the pace of development. Right now, we rely on the federal government and that is the unfortunate reality.

As we look at what tools do we have, independence is not there. But I would suggest that this territorial Legislature should consider having a carbon tax in place, all the instruments necessary to use should we need it. I think it's a very clear message. It's one thing to worry about the bad message that we're sending to business, but we can't stand here year after year with the hundreds of millions verging on billions of dollars that have been taken out of here, that we have no control and no ability to get our fair share of. Every diamond, every barrel of gas and oil that goes is gone. It's not retroactive. We've already lost 10 years with the diamond mines that we will never get back.

One of the other things that is going to be very critically important to us as we move forward is how do we work with the aboriginal governments as we try to defend and protect the land, environment and the people of the Northwest Territories when we deal outside our jurisdiction? I would suggest to you that up to this point it's been the aboriginal governments that have carried the can, carried the freight, carried the weight, to go to other jurisdictions like Alberta to meet and make the case that we are downstream, we are downwind, and we are very worried about what you're doing in your jurisdiction and the impact it's having on us in our land.

The federal government has been almost non-existent at a policy level. They don't know what's happening in Alberta and we cannot count on them to protect our interests. They are responsible for the water and the land in the Northwest Territories and where are they? They can't even come up with rules and regulations for barges, single-hulled, beat up old barges where 40 million litres of fuel are sitting on one of the most sensitive waterways in our land, with no way to know what's happening, that would not be allowed on land in any stretch of the imagination. They tell us there's nothing we can do and they are responsible. We drink the water, the fish live in it, the marine ecosystems are all relying on that water, so the federal government is not there either. So we have many challenges ahead of us.

There are things we can do in addition to a carbon tax. I believe we should be looking at a new hydro policy that's going to allow us to lay out a plan into the future five, 10, 15 years if we have to, 20, that will say, in the areas where we have hydro, we want to make sure that as a government we use that surplus in all our buildings to cut our greenhouse gas emissions. In those communities that have capacity for hydro, like Whati, we have to come up with a policy and a funding arrangement that does not leave it entirely under the regulatory regime of the PUB, but where we can work with the Tlicho Government, for example, and the people of Whati, and the public, and the GNWT, in a partnership arrangement to look at putting in the small hydro that's going to allow us to deal with some of these issues.

No talk about our budget, our economy, Mr. Speaker, would be complete unless we look at the expenditure side, because we can generate all the revenue, we can double our budget and we would still spend it all, and we would still tell people we need more. That is because, Mr. Speaker, we are spending it as fast or faster than we can make it, and a big chunk of those expenditures come down to how we do business and how people make personal choices.

I want to first talk briefly about the personal choices. I know, having been Health Minister for five years, Education Minister for a bit, that people make choices and that our costs are driven. Sixty-five cents almost of every dollar is spent on social programs. I don't have enough money in the budget to ask the government to say can you chipseal Highway No. 5, because the money is being taken up elsewhere. Every community, every business, every region has a list of issues where they could use the money to do good things. But there's four simple things that are driving our costs. It's the smoking; it's the abuse of alcohol and drugs; it's the lack of a proper diet; and, getting enough exercise. Those four things, Mr. Speaker. As northerners, if we started looking at those, our costs as a government would drop almost overnight. If there was no more alcohol abuse starting today at five o'clock, tomorrow you would notice a difference, and we would notice less pressure on our systems, on our jails, on our family shelters, family violence shelters. We would start having babies born healthy. We would have kids going to school with a full stomach, and awake because the parents were there for them.

So we have a responsibility as we ask and look to generate more revenue. As a government we have to be more effective. We've talked in this House, we've all torn out our hair and gnashed our teeth, for example, about our capital projects that come in consistently over budget, the way they're timed, they way they're estimated and the way they're implemented. As a government, we have a responsibility to change that process so that we do not waste 20, 30, 40 percent of our capital budget on inefficient planning.

Mr. Speaker, we also have to make very serious efforts on implementing our building standards; tough northern energy-efficient building standards that are going to help us conserve. That is doable and it shouldn't just be for government buildings, we have to be able to do this across the North. We have to cut our reliance on petroleum products. Oil is $60 a barrel now. It may go down a bit, but it's going to continue to rise. There's a plateau that just keeps moving up.

In addition to putting in hydroelectric power where we can, clearly, conservation is going to be a huge issue as a way that we can help be more efficient, cut our greenhouse gasses and be a responsible citizen, a political citizen.

Mr. Speaker, there are targets coming, be it with this Conservative government or the next federal government. There is too much proof that we have to have targets to cut our greenhouse gas emissions. We have a plan now that is mainly paper and it's going to be time for us to put all these pieces together as we look at the budget and we look at our economy and we look at the challenges ahead.

Revenue issues, expenditure issues, we want a sustainable society and a strong economy. The challenge is there. The key for us always comes back to the big ticket item of devolution and resource and revenue sharing. If we get there tomorrow, it gives us a whole range of different options and control over the issue and

the problems and the solutions. If we don't, I would suggest that we seriously have to consider proceeding in some of the areas that I have outlined.

I think the people of the Northwest Territories recognize that we have to get together to deal with these tough issues, cumulative impacts, what's best for northerners, how fast can we develop and what is best for all of us and our children. We can no longer avoid that. We know how well the Caribou Summit worked when we brought everybody together. We did the front end work to give people a chance to identify the issues, see the information and come together to talk and look at resolutions. We came out with good recommendations.

I would suggest to you that while it may be late in the life of this Assembly, that the 16th Assembly, as one of their first courses of action, is going to have to ask those questions and lay out those answers so we can map out the road to the future. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. At this time, before we go on with orders of the day, the Chair is going to call a short break.

---SHORT RECESS

Back to orders of the day. Item 10, replies to the budget address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. The honourable Member for Monfwi, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight is pleased to present its Report on the 2007-2008 Pre-Budget Review Process. This report covers both the committee review of the 2007-2010 draft business plans, which took place in September 2006, and the review of 2007-2008 draft main estimates, which took place in January 2007.

2007-2008 was the second budget cycle with pre-budget consultations, which the committee undertook in late summer of 2006. The committee presented its report on those consultations last October and looks forward to the tabling of the government's response later in this sitting.

This was also the second year committees used a shortened process to review the draft main estimates. Committee members continue to support this approach as we feel that detailed discussions on the proposed budget should take place in the Legislative Assembly, on the public record rather than in closed-door meetings.

Our shortened review of the draft main estimates, conducted on January 15, 2007, included a fiscal update from the Minister of Finance, as well as an opportunity to receive information on changes made to the budget since last September's draft business plans.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that the Report on the 2007-2008 Pre-Budget Review Process of the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight be deemed read and printed in Hansard in its entirety. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

A motion is on the floor. The motion is in order.

Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried